prune away

prune away

To remove something superfluous, undesirable, or unnecessary (from something else). A noun or pronoun can be used between "prune" and "away." We need to prune away these dead branches to allow the tree to grow new ones in their place. As your career evolves, you'll need to start pruning less relevant work experience away from your résumé.
See also: away, prune
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

prune something away

to cut away something unwanted or unneeded. Please prune the lower branches of the trees away. They are starting to annoy pedestrians. We pruned away the dead branches.
See also: away, prune
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • bring away
  • blaze away
  • blaze away at (someone or something)
  • bury away
  • chew away
  • boring
  • borne
  • bear away
  • chuck away
  • cut away
References in classic literature
Another has been found willing to prune away Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the feudal abbey with three bell towers.
People who are better able to prune away irrelevant events are better able to remember pertinent events.
When the plant has made a framework, prune away extra shoots that sprout from the main stem.
Besides the occasional memory gaffe, the brain's approach to forgetting serves us well, and our retrieval failures help prune away memories that we don't really need.
Price has supported efforts to prune away as much as of the ACA possible by using a budget reconciliation bill.
After the test, the knowledge is not used on a daily basis and the dendrites begin to prune away the excess receptors for a signal that stopped firing.
The way of obedience is narrow in order to prune away non-essentials, making way for the benefits of God's wider places.
A: As a general guide for pruning hardwoods, select one main trunk and prune away secondary stems.
It can throw up some surprising needs or prune away some things which you think are important, but really aren't, and this process will gain more traction from now.
Rather than wish that the divine vinegrower might prune away this one or that one who, in our estimation, is no more than a nuisance or dead weight, we might do well to heed the wise counsel of one of our.
Whether we abstain from meat, gossip, or frivolous spending during Lent, the intent is to weed out and prune away anything that chokes off our view of the holy.
On Shafer's hillside vineyards we had to prune away about half of our fruit, which was not maturing properly, so at harvest we only picked grapes that had achieved true ripeness.
'The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars, and earthquakes have come to be regarded a blessing to overcrowded nations, since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race." Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus 3rd cent AID Roman Catholic writer
The arms should be spaced a foot apart on opposite sides of the cordon; prune away any excess arms during the dormant season.
Kocher travels within this space, employing both free verse and formal techniques to deal vividly with the motion of relationships, as in "Taking Down the Ivy," where a lover seems to prune away roughness with a touch.